6 person 6 Just before her birthday an engineer receives a p

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person 6. Just before her birthday an engineer receives a pack- age from a vendor with whom she has dealt in the past. The engineer is now employed with a company entirely outside the field of the vendor\'s interest. The package contains several place settings of sterling silver. Should the engineer keep the gift or return it? Why? 1 Rofor to Case No, 10-9 in Appendix B. Is it ethical for

Solution

The vendor has sent the gift to the engineer just before her birthday. There can be two situations possible here. Firstly, the vendor may have remembered the engineer\'s birthday and thus sent her a birthday gift. Secondly, the gift may have been sent as a token of goodwill because of their past official dealings. In any case, gifts received from well wishers should never be returned back to them. It\'s a very bad gesture to return back gifts to sender. What the engineer should do in this case is to express her heartfelt thankfulness to the vendor for the gift. She should tell the vendor about her present employment and that she has now switched her field of job. Also she should send a new gift to the vendor as a goodwill gesture and mention that it was great to have dealt with the vendor in the past and that they should remain in contact.